Wolf Popper currently represents the Public Employees’ Retirement System of Mississippi (MissPERS), as lead plaintiff, in an action against JPMorgan Acquisition Corp. (“JPMAC”), certain individuals employed by JPMAC or its affiliates, and JP Morgan Securities, Inc., on behalf of investors who purchased certain mortgage pass-through certificates (mortgage-backed securities). The case is pending the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, Case No. 08cv1713, before the Hon. Edward R. Korman.
MissPERS’s amended complaint alleges that the offering documents pursuant to which the JPMAC securities were sold contained misrepresentations and omitted to disclose information concerning the underwriting of the mortgage loans serving as collateral for the securities. On December 13, 2011, the court denied in part and granted in part the defendants’ motion to dismiss (the “Dismissal Order”). Significantly, the Dismissal Order sustained the vast majority of MissPERS’s substantive allegations but limited the scope of MissPERS standing to those tranches that it had purchased in several of the offerings at issue.
On January 11, 2012 MissPERS made a motion to amend the Dismissal Order to include certification for interlocutory appeal on the standing questions addressed by Judge Korman. On May 4, 2012, the court stayed MissPERS’s motion to amend pending the hearing and determination of the appeal in NECA-IBEW Health & Welfare Fund v. Goldman, Sachs & Co., No. 11-2762 (2d Cir., argued Feb. 3, 2012) (“NECA-IBEW”), a case that considered the same tranche-based standing requirement at issue in JPMAC.
On September 6, 2012 the Second Circuit issued its opinion in the NECA-IBEW case and held, with respect to the standing issues, that an investor could bring claims related to any securities that were backed by mortgages emanating from the same financial institution. Acknowledging the effect of the decision in NECA-IBEW, on September 14, 2012 Judge Korman issued an order indicating that he would amend his Dismissal Order to reflect the expanded standing required under NECA-IBEW. The parties are now engaged in discovery on the sustained claims which involve 26 of the offerings included in the amended complaint.
Discovery is set to continue through the first quarter of 2014.